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SAP Adds to Its Integrated Business Planning Capabilities

SAP SE SAP recently announced the extension of its cloud-based solution, SAP Integrated Business Planning for sales and operations planning along with inventory and supply optimization, demand sensing and forecasting as well as exception-driven response management. Notably, in order to help customers advance planning maturity, these capabilities extend supply chain planning beyond the four walls of the enterprise.

SAP Integrated Business Planning guides companies in a range of industries, enabling them to benefit from reduced inventories as well as better customer service. The company’s integrated planning solution utilizes SAP’s collaborative supplier network, enabling customers to integrate and collaborate with their suppliers throughout the planning process as well as advance on the planning maturity curve.

The additional capabilities include supply-side collaboration with forecast commit and message integration with the SAP Ariba Supply Chain Collaboration as well as visibility of remaining shelf life at customer-facing distribution centers. The enhancement to demand sensing capability enables customers to better forecast short-term demand by using point-of-sale data.

This apart, the capability expansion allows customers to model product discontinuation utilizing phase-out curves during statistical forecasting. Further, it also allows end users to see multiple time levels in same view, enabling them to visualize weekly, monthly, as well as quarterly volumes and balances together, consequently providing better consumed information.

Our Take

SAP has established itself as a trusted partner for business enterprises who seek to transform the entire landscape of their operations including applications, cloud, business networks and platforms. With business enterprises leveraging on state-of-the-art technology to outshine peers, we believe that SAP’s market leading portfolio will continue to witness increased demand, thus bolster its financials. Notably, in past one year, the Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company’s stock has yielded a return of 34.7%, outperforming the industry’s growth of 34.6%.

The company’s Customer Engagement and Commerce solutions once again achieved double-digit growth in new cloud bookings as well as software revenues. Driven by solid market traction of cloud business, the company has raised mid-term outlook, signaling brighter days ahead. Cloud subscriptions and support revenues are anticipated to surpass software license revenues in 2018, consequently supplementing its financial performance.

Moreover, the company’s new class of solutions that power the next generation of business applications — SAP HANA — has been driving growth since introduction. Also, its latest offering from the SAP HANA family, S/4HANA, has established itself as a “mission critical control center” for businesses pursuing digital transformation.

This apart, the company has the largest business network, managed through three main players, namely, Ariba, Fieldglass and Concur. The company remains focused on leveraging huge network to enhance collaboration both within and among the companies. The company’s strategic actions to reinforce its thriving business network are likely to accelerate growth momentum. Further, the company’s human capital management applications are gradually gaining extreme popularity, with many international organizations.

Other Stocks to Consider

Some other top-ranked stocks from the same space include Analog Devices, Inc. ADI, AMTEK, Inc. AME and ANSYS, Inc. ANSS. While Analog Devices sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), AMTEK and ANSYS carry a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Analog Devices has surpassed estimates in the trailing four quarters, with an average positive earnings surprise of 16.3%.

AMTEK has outpaced estimates thrice in the preceding four quarters, with an average earnings surprise of 4.1%.

ANSYS has surpassed estimates in the trailing four quarters, with an average positive earnings surprise of 6.3%.

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